The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for modifying and/or inspecting an object. In particular, it pertains to a system and method for using nanostructured and nanopositioned probes to remove material from or add material to an object, chemically change the material of an object, and/or analyze the material of an object.
Common microfabrication techniques such as e-beam, laser beam, and standard photolithography are used to directly make or modify semiconductor wafers or fabrication masks. However, these techniques suffer from limitations in the size and energy which may to be used to create, modify, and inspect structures on the wafers or masks.
Specifically, it is desirable that techniques be available to create, modify, and inspect structures in the range of a single molecule (approximately 1 Angstrom or less). However, the current techniques are unable to create, modify, and inspect structures at and below 100 nanometers.
For example, in conventional semiconductor fabrication mask repair systems, a finely focused laser beam is used to remove or chemically activate for removal material deposited in a pattern on a mask Similarly, the laser beam is used to deposit material on the mask by locally heating sites on the mask while the mask is in a gaseous environment. However, these techniques can only be used to create desired changes of no smaller then 500 nanometers. Moreover, these semiconductor fabrication mask repair systems cannot insure that the changes made to a modified mask will produce the desired pattern on a target wafer.
In summary the present invention is a SPM (scanning probe microscopy) inspection and/or modification system which uses SPM technology and techniques in new and novel ways to inspect and/or modify an object. The system includes various types of microstructured SPM (scanning probe microscopy) probes for inspection and/or modification of the object.
The components of the SPM system also include microstructured calibration structures. A probe may be defective because of wear or because of fabrication errors. Various types of reference measurements of the calibration structure are made with the probe or vice versa to calibrate it.
In addition, the components of the SPM system may include one or more tip machining structures. At these structures, material of the tips of the SPM probes may be machined by abrasively lapping and chemically lapping the material of the tips. This is done by rubbing the material of the tips against the tip machining structures.
The SPM probes include probes with which the object may be inspected in a number of ways using SPM technology and techniques. This inspection is performed with various components of the SPM system for making SPM measurements with the probes. All of the SPM measurements are processed and inspection data (or results) for the object is generated. This inspection data may include an image and/or analysis of the object. The analysis may be of the electrical, optical, chemical, (including catalytic), and/or biological (including morphological) properties, operation, and/or characteristics of the object.
The SPM probes also include probes with which the object may be modified in a number of ways using SPM technology and techniques. Some of these probes may also be used to inspect the object, as just discussed. A user may request that a modification be made to the object based on the inspection data just described or on inspection data generated by some of the other components of the system without using any probes.
The generated inspection data is then compared with target data (or parameters). This target data may include a target image and/or analysis of the object which is/are compared with the generated image and/or analysis. If they do not match within a predefined tolerance level, then modification data is generated that identifies the types of modifications that need to be made to the object to fall within the tolerance level. These modifications may be simply to remove particle contaminants on the object or more importantly to structurally and/or chemically modify the material of the object by removing, deforming, and/or chemically changing a portion of it or adding other material to it. Then, one or more of the modification probes are used to make these desired modifications.
The process just described can be iteratively repeated until the generated inspection data converges to the target data so as to be within the predefined tolerance level. This process is particularly useful in fabrication and/or repair of semiconductor wafers and fabrication masks, lithographic structures, and thin film magnetic read/write heads.